Icon 102 out now

11.11.11

Icon 102 is out now and the theme of the new issue is “Fire”. We interview Peter Zumthor, who recently completed a memorial to 91 witches who were burned at the stake in the 17th century on the Arctic island of Vardø, Norway, in collaboration with Louise Bourgeois. Icon visits his Memorial Gallery and House of Fire, built to shelter a flaming installation by the late artist.

We also talk to BarberOsgerby, designers of the 2012 Olympic torch, and look at the architectural effigies built and destroyed every year at Burning Man in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. And in Belfast, Declan O’Neill photographs the Tower of Babel-like bonfires burnt every year before the climax of the Loyalist marching season.

Up front there’s a museum by MAD in Inner Mongolia, Herzog & de Meuron’s office stack in Basel, Odile Decq’s restaurant for the Palais Garnier in Paris and a new interior for a rural English abbey by Thomas Heatherwick.

In Review we note that the OMA exhibition at the Barbican is not a retrospective, watch the final film in Gary Hustwit’s Design Trilogy, applaud Chinese designers at Beijing Design week and puzzle over the meaning of Postmodernism.